Death Sucks

by Andrew Mallen

  No cock. What’s up with that?

  *

  “Mr. Grant has a good question although I consider it rude of him to keep it to himself mind you. Nevertheless it leads me to my own introduction, I believe you all deserve to know how I came to hold such a prestigious position in the service of our Master, or perhaps I am merely a braggart. Whatever the case, you are in for a delightful tale and one I am quite proud of.

  “I have no cock because they cut it off. Hurt like Hell it did but it was part of two glorious days of torture back when such things were commonplace. Not like these days, when they stick you with a needle and send you on your way, how utterly boring.

  “You, those of you with a smidgen of sense at least, might wonder why I remain cockless when all of you have been fully restored. The Master, in his wisdom, elected to refrain from restoring my cock in order to keep it from governing my deeds and actions as it did in life. I must admit I do think far more clearly without it but I have managed to find a variety of ways to satisfy my particular needs. It requires creativity but, as an artist, I found the challenge quite enlightening. I’m rambling again, proof the Master’s choice was the right one.

  “I lived and died in what is now Great Britain, in the time of King James. A brilliant era, people dying of all sorts of things, all around the place. I remember the smell, the rot and the shit, such a wonderful time to be alive. The church, as holy as it would have you believe it to be, killed more than any plague or war, and in ways that can only be considered, even today, as enlightened. Disemboweling, flaying, stretching, crushing, oh my word, I can almost hear the screaming.”

  He paused, overtaken by the memory, sighed and continued, “I had a taste for young women, the younger the better I don’t mind telling you. It was so easy to catch the little things then, so simple to snatch them from the streets. Once I had them, once they were mine, I would take my time extracting the pleasures they held deep inside. So soft their skin, so delicate their suffering, they were both my muse and my art. They’re squealing, the finest music. Their tears, the sweetest wine. Their flesh, oh…their lovely flesh, so sweet and so divine. I feasted. I gorged. I lived!”

  His voice had risen to a fevered pitch. Closing his eyes, savoring the memory stored in the loathsome depths of his twisted mind, he shuddered as the recollection overcame him.

  “Alas, it ended. I was undone by my thirst. Too eager to secure my next prize, I made mistakes and soon found his majesties soldiers to my door. I’d hidden nothing you understand, my house was a shrine to those who had died within it. Framed swaths of porcelain skin hung from every wall, scalps adorned every doorway, eyes beheld the beauty I’d created from the many jars that lined my shelves. I denied none of what they charged me. Who were they to judge me? Those powder-wigged imbeciles could never understand such things. I was guilty, yes, but only of letting myself get caught. Sentenced to die by torture, I embraced my end and relished the pain it promised, for I knew my work would not be overlooked. I knew the Master would reward me for my devotion.”

  Bobby, like all those around him, stared in awe while struggling to hide their disgust.

  “You may judge me if you wish yet here we are together, all of us judged and deemed of equal caliber. We are not, make no mistake. My work was a thing of beauty, a dream made whole by my own relentless dedication to please the Master. Most of you are but crude killers with nothing but greed or stupidity as your driving force. You who kill without style or talent, should be ashamed. We were not equals, be sure of it. None of you could ever measure to me, not a single one. You are here to partake in my wisdom, to suckle on the tit of my knowledge. It is an honor bestowed upon you by the Master but I am the one who will decide if you deserve it. If you do not embrace what I offer, if you fall short of the standard I set, you will discover the true depths of my depravity.”

  He scanned the faces of his audience, searching for anyone foolish enough to doubt him. None did.

  “You are here because our Master sees a little of himself in each of you. As a reward, you have been given the opportunity to become a Reaper, a collector if you prefer, of those souls destined for the Flames.”

  “Hell?” someone whispered again.

  “Hell, yes, Hell is the Christian name for the paradise our Master created. Hades, the Underworld, Babylon, the Pit, eternal damnation, call it what you will Mr. Murphy, it is only a name. None, in your language or any other, can capture its beauty.

  “Your work, if not done in a manner worthy of it, will see your quick descent into the fiery pit where our Masters most talented orchestrator’s of misery will elicit from you pain so exquisite and so intense that eternity will stretch out over…well… eternity!”

  Jones bellowed laughter, bending over to hack his guttural chortles until it seemed he might succumb to the strain. He didn’t, regained his composure and rambled on, “You must understand that a good laugh is something I take very seriously. Now, where was I?”

  “Collectors,” the woman with the accent said, her voice as steady as her eyes.

  Jones nodded, studied her for a moment, and continued, “You are to learn the art of recruitment which is exactly as it sounds. People die, their souls are freed, and you make sure they come here, to us.”

  “Who else would want them?” a soft-looking, middle-age woman asked, her accent as French as Jones’s was English.

  “Ms. Volte, very good question. There are those who work for the other side, those armed with the F word and all too eager to use it.”

  “Fuck?” the black haired kid asked.

  “Fuck? Fuck is the curse word of fools. An old German word for striking or hitting I will have you know but it has become, inexplicably, so much more. No, our F word, the one which will see whoever is foolish enough to utter it outside this chamber set to roast on a spit for the remainder of time, is far more disgusting, far more despicable, far more…more… more… appalling!”

  They watched as Jones scanned their faces for anyone foolish enough to ask the question in all their minds.

  “Forgiveness,” the old man called Bryson said softly.

  “Yes! The priest knows, of course he would, right Father Bryson?”

  “Yes,” Bryson murmured.

  “And why did you, a man of the oh-so-righteous and murderous church of G-O-D, not ask for it?” Jones held up one finger to keep the old man from answering. “Listen close, the lot of you.”

  Jones dropped his finger and nodded. The priest spoke, “I do not deserve it.”

  Jones erupted in laughter once again. “I don’t deserve it!” he cried, pointing at the priest. “You fool!”

  The old priest, his chin high despite the ridicule, said nothing.

  “Your appetites are your own sir,” Jones continued once his hysteria passed. “I do not judge them. But to resist them, to suppress your urges and desires, the very gifts the Master endowed upon you, is an act of an ingrate and a fool. You sir are that fool. Yet despite your foolishness and resentment, the Master has deemed you worthy of reward.”

  “This is no reward. This is eternal punishment for sins against the Father.”

  Splayed by expectation and terror, all eyes turned toward Jones.

  “This father, where is he?”

  “In Heaven.”

  “Why did he not save you? Why did he not send his champions to elicit your forgiveness before we did?” Jones asked, anger simmering beneath the thin veil of serenity he struggled to maintain.

  “My Lord’s Angel came to me.” The priest’s face softened as he recalled the visit. “She was beautiful and kind but I refused her. I am a sinner, a sinner who forfeit my right to His charity a long time ago. I need to atone, I deserve to suffer for my sins.”

  “Fool! Doesn’t your father,”–Jones made air quotes with his long fingers - “forgive? Are you so arrogant as to refuse Him? You know better than your god? You know more than the thing you worship?”

  Bryson frowned.

  “You refused
him because you thought his forgiveness an error?”

  “I refused because I didn’t deserve it.”

  “But your god, this father of yours, did.”

  “Yes but…”

  “So, as your last act in the living world, you rejected your god because you knew better than he did.”

  “I…no…I mean...”

  “Old man, you told your god to fuck right off, that his charity was shit, and that you’d prefer to suffer for all eternity rather than accept what he offered.”

  Bryson lowered his head, his spirit broken.

  “Well done old boy!” Jones applauded wildly, nodding at the class who immediately joined the mockery, their hands slapping awkwardly under his control. The agony of Jones’s revelation had the old priest on the brink of madness, the ridicule of the applause pushed him over the edge. “My Lord God knows my heart!”

  The clapping stopped at once. Jones studied the priest for a moment and smiled. “Let’s make sure, shall we?”

  The old priest rose up and flew toward Jones, kicking and screaming, adding to the fiend’s enjoyment. Stopping before Jones, he hung untethered, arms and legs spread wide and waiting. Jones flicked his deadly finger and the priest’s robe parted to reveal the old man’s frail nakedness. Jones stepped closer, raised one hand and dragged the nail of one finger across Bryson’s flabby chest. The skin parted with ease but the priest made no sound. His face twisted in misery but he withheld his screams, denying Jones the pleasure he craved. Jones reached into the wound and snapped one of the priest’s ribs as if it were a dry twig and tossed it aside. Bryson screamed then, a cry so piercing and so wretched that Bobby tried to cover his ears and close eyes but couldn’t. He couldn’t move a muscle, no one could. The brutality of their host as he continued to snap the old man’s ribs from his chest was as much a lesson for them as it was for the Bryson.

  Once the priest’s chest revealed the heart he so bravely spoke of, Jones reached in and tore it from its roost. He held it before his face, studying it as if looking at a snow globe through the eyes of a child. “Looks like a plain old heart to me,” he said turning from the priest whose guttural cries still filled the chamber. “Look, all of you, just a heart. No golden glow, no magic sparkle, just the dead muscle of a dead man, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The audience nodded as one but only because Jones made them.

  “Up you go!” Jones cried and flung the stolen organ into the flaming sky. “There you go priest, I’ve sent it up to your so-called father but not to worry, you have no use for it anymore. Perhaps he’ll send a rescue party for you. I can just see him up there pondering it. The priest who defiled and murdered dozens of children, who refused him as his last act in life, who thinks himself better than him, were I a betting man I’d wager he’s well chuffed at your current situation.”

  Bryson said nothing. Jones licked the same finger and wiped the thick, milky spittle along the wound. It closed slowly, like a tired eye, leaving only a black scar in place of the jagged chasm. He cast Bryson across the room and dropped him to his feet. The priest was going mad, and quickly. He fingered his new scar with one hand and pulled at the wild tufts of gray hair that encircled his head with the other. Stepping from his place in line he stumbled toward Jones. Praying and making the sign of the cross in the air while calling out to his god to forgive Jones for his many sins. Jones barked with surprise and applauded wildly, letting Bryson creep closer and closer, his prayers grew louder with every step.

  “You’re a brave old pedo I’ll give you that but you’ve run your course old boy,” Jones said and snapped his long bony fingers. “Eternity waits old man. I’m quite sure Master will have a special hole for you where only the finest of his tormentors will indulge in your flesh.”

  Flames reached high into the chamber. Another twisted, blackened creature climbed from their keep and hobbled eagerly into the ranks on crooked legs. Bobby noticed the scorched appendages that carried it ended in hooves instead of feet. Standing before Bryson, a forked tongue slipped from the tear in its face and tasted the air between them. Bryson continued his prayers, if they were for mercy they weren’t working. The beast drove the long tines of its fork into the priests groin and Bryson squealed, the cry almost loud enough to drown Jones’s laughter.

  The beast hoisted Bryson up effortlessly, its strength came from more than just the roasted muscles of its charred arms. Bryson screamed, his pain so intense he’d forgotten his rebellious prayer, his beliefs, even his god. All the old man knew was agony, all he would ever know was agony. The beast propped the shaft of his long fork against his shoulder like a soldier would his rifle and shuffled back toward the inferno from which it came.

  “Goodbye father. Don’t forget to write.” Jones waved and with a flick of his finger forced all those that remained to join him in the farewell salute.

  Bryson saw none of it, lost in his immeasurable pain and bottomless fear. The beast entered the flames and descended into their keep. Bryson caught fire and spasmed wildly as it took to his flesh. Amazingly his screams grew even louder a moment before the entryway disappeared and cut them off, leaving behind only a dying echo as proof the priest ever existed.

  “Stop that stupid waving!” Jones shouted and released the group who stared awestruck at the spot on the floor where Bryson disappeared. “Three down and we’ve not even begun to train, this group isn’t showing much promise to say the least.”

  He shook his head in disgust and moved on to the next lesson.

  *

  Holy shit, I’m in actual Hell. This is some seriously crazy shit. I’m not supposed to be here, no way. If this prick finds out I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to apologize, call me an Uber and send me on my way. Best-case scenario I’m gonna burn in Hell for-fucking-ever. Worse case, I’ll end up as psycho-Brit’s personal boy-toy and discover all the fun things he did to earn a cock-ectomy. I’m so fucked

  A middle aged woman in the row beside him suddenly yelled, “I do not know why I am here?”

  Bobby turned to see who possessed such bravery or stupidity. Pale skinned like the rest of them but with thick black hair, sharp features and a Middle Eastern accent, she trembled.

  “Ms. Haneef, my dear, it is not uncommon for those who’ve experienced a traumatic death to forget its details. Yours was indeed traumatic to say the least,” Jones informed them all.

  “I know nothing,” Haneef whispered as her deep brown eyes darted wildly from Jones to the burning sky to Jones again.

  “Jihad my dear, you died to root out the infidels. A spectacular scene indeed,” Jones closed his eyes to savor the scene as he relayed it. “Twelve bars of C4, a marketplace full of women and children, and one crazy bitch with a death wish, that’s you of course. The perfect recipe for carnage and, I must admit, it was indeed a glorious spectacle for those with an affinity for such grand slaughter. Me, I prefer a more intimate, a more relaxed killing but to each his own, excuse me, her own. Any bells ringing in that little head of yours my little brown delight?”

  “I know nothing,” Haneef whispered again.

  “I’m sure you were expecting to wake up in paradise. Rivers of wine, palaces, sex of such purity as to set your little sandy vagina quivering for all eternity but alas you made a mess of it all. Of the fifty-eight people you blew to smithereens not a single one was an infidel, not a single one. You killed fifty-eight devout Muslims, maimed and crippled a few dozen more but made more of a fool out of yourself than a martyr. Allah would not approve. Malak al-Maut delivered you to us himself in fact. There was no grave trial, no visit from Munkar or Nakir, and there will be no seventy-two virgins although I doubt a timid thing like you would know what to do with even a single cock, virgin or otherwise!”

  Haneef lowered her head but said nothing. Bobby watched as she cried tearlessly, her shoulders shivered under the weight of the revelation and its harsh delivery.

  “Anyone else?” Jones asked. “I love this stuff. Some of you do the stupidest things. I
f brains were a requirement here, we’d have closed up shop centuries ago.”

  Silence.

  I do but I ain’t stupid enough to ask this guy. I know I’m not like the Jihadi Hotty or Father Pedo. I can’t be, I’d know, I’d feel it or something. Maybe I was a bully or an asshole, or maybe I just had like a weak moral compass or something but I definitely don’t belong here. Being a dick isn’t a sin, if it was this place would be packed.

  “And indeed it is Mr. Grant but those underachievers are below,” Jones answered and Bobby winced.

  Fuuuuuuuuck! Shut it down before this prick gets riled up again.

  “Do you belong here Mr. Grant? Do you deserve the honor of the robe, the privilege of the hood and the the scythe? I am steadfast in my belief that you do not but it is not my decision to make. You are here because of bad luck more than bad intent. You were nothing more than a loser until the short hours before your death but it was what you accomplished in that span that got you here,” Jones said, looking straight at Bobby and making no attempt to hide his repulsion.

  “So what did I do…in the end?”

  “Mr. Grant, it would be easy for me to reveal your deeds as I’ve done for the lovely Ms. Haneef and yet I will not. Leaving you to wallow in your ignorance will produce a great deal more enjoyment for me. You are soft, a wimp as you yanks like to say, and you’ll not get a single clue from me as to the who, what, where and when of what brought you here. It may drive you mad, I’ve seen it before, but don’t worry, I’ll bring you back again and again and again if need be.” Jones beamed when he’d finished, revealing a brace of crooked teeth.

  Definitely British.

  Bobby instantly doubled over, his stomach afire and burning bright. “Mr. Grant, it isn’t nice to disrespect your host even within the privacy of your mind,” Jones whispered through the clenched teeth Bobby had been foolish enough to ridicule. “I’m going to need you to apologize.”

  Bobby couldn’t move or think, the internal inferno consumed him.